Beef with Ginger and Caramelized Onions

After many attempts, I finally managed to get the beef to be tender, and the sauce to be right! The first time I tried cooking this dish, I used too much pepper. The poor boys kept drinking water and telling me "Mama, it's so hot!". The second time, I grated too much ginger, and again, the boys kept drinking water. And each time, the beef turned out to be a little tough for the kids. Good exercise for their jaws though.

But once I get the right tenderness for the beef, and the right taste without the spiceness from the pepper and ginger, the sauce is great for vegetables and a bowl of steamy hot rice. I like my dinner to be hot, especially when the pointer on the thermometer reaches the single digit on the celsius scale and the trees outside are doing their wild dance.

Adapted from : Williams-Sonoma Asian, Food Made Fast

750g Beef Tenderloin or Sirloin, cut across the grain into thin strips

5 tbsp Soy Sauce (I use Kikomann's Low Sodium Soy Sauce)

2 tbsp Rice wine/Dry Sherry (I used Red Cooking Wine)

2 tbsp Worcestershire Sauce

2 tsp Sesame oil

1/2 tsp Sugar

1/2 tsp Cornstarch

2 tbsp Corn or peanut oil

1 Large Yellow Onion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp Ginger, grated

1 Orange or yellow pepper, seeded and sliced (optional)

1 dash Freshly ground pepper

• Marinate the beef : Combine the beef, 1 tbsp of the soy sauce, and the wine. Mix to coat the beef evenly. Set aside for 10 minutes.
• Make the sauce : Combine 4 tbsp water, the remaining 4 tbsp soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, sesame oil, sugar, cornstarch and a dash of pepper, and stir to dissolve the sugar and cornstarch.
• Heat a wok over hight heat until very hot and add 1 tbsp of oil.
• Add the onion and bell pepper, and stir-fry until caramelized, about 10 minutes.
• Transfer the onion mixture to a plate.
• Return the pan to high heat and add the remaining 1 tbsp of oil.
• Add ginger and stir-fry until fragrant, about 10 seconds.
• Add the beef and stir-fry until it begins to brown and is still rare in the centre.
• Return the onion mixture to the pan.
• Give the sauce a quick stir, add to the pan, and stir until the sauce thickens slightly, about 10 seconds.
• Sprinkle with red pepper flakes to taste, if desired.

Enjoy!

Hi Mister Piggy!

Dear Mister Piggy, I love you!

I love Sundays too!

Sunday is the day Papa gives us pocket money.

I will feed you some, and keep some in my little round box. The money in the little round box can be used to buy things that I like, like books at Borders. I am also saving up to buy Lego!

After a month of saving up, I finally have enough money to buy a Space Police set! My brother has less money, so he can only buy the Creator set. The Lego Space Police is very cool!

Mama says that if I learn my chinese words well, she will consider buying another "not so expensive" Space Police set for me and my brother! Hooray! I will make sure I study hard for my Chinese. Just recognising the chinese characters. I don't have to remember how to write them. Hmm ... I should be able to do that =)

I am eagerly waiting for Mama to start the Chinese lesson with me!

Apple Crumble

What do you do when you have many apples, from an apple-picking trip? Especially when the apples are tart, not your usual Gala apples.

Yesterday, for dessert, I diced some apples, dipped in chocolate ganache, and top it with ground peanuts. Today, I used 5 big apples to make apple crumble =)

The little one at home loved it!

He had been coming to the dining table, asking for more, more and more!

Had to put a stop to it, or he would not be able to eat his dinner later.

He was happy to have it for dessert, after dinner =)

Adapted from : Williams-Sonoma Baking, Food Made Fast

2 lb, 1 kg Large tart apples such as Granny Smith

1 tbsp Lemon Juice

2 tbsp Granulated Sugar

3/4 cup, Old Fashion Rolled Oats

1/2 cup Light Brown Sugar, firmly packed

1/3 cup Flour

1 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1 pinch Salt

6 tbsp Unsalted Butter, melted

1/2 cup Walnuts (I used pecans), optional

• Butter a 9-inch square baking pan or dish.
• Preheat oven to 375F (190C).
• Peel and core the apples, and slice them into a bowl.
• Add lemon juice and granulated sugar. Toss to coat.
• Place the apples in the prepared dish and pat them so they are level.
• In a bowl, stir together the oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and walnuts. Drizzle the melted butter over the mixture and toss with a fork until evenly moistened. Cover the apples evenly with the topping.
• Bake until the apples are tender when pierced with a knife and the topping is browned, 35 - 40 minutes.
• Let cool slightly in the pan on a wire rack.
• Spoon the crumble into bowls, top each with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream, if desired, and serve.

We finished three-quarters of it by the end of the day!

What's next? Vanilla-Apple Muffins?

Daily Writing in School

Darling son YW has a Writing period in school. Every Monday, they also have a News Report. What is that? The students are required to write down what they do over the weekend.

But the boy just started Kindergarten!

Can't write? Never mind.

The idea is to get them to sound out their words, and associate the sounds with the letters, group them together and form a word. Yes, the words are not correctly spelled sometimes. That's why they have a 30-minute period for writing every day. They write words, high frequency words.

The boy came home on Monday, and told me about the very long sentence he wrote in his News Report. He said Mrs M read his News Report and told him "It was a long and good sentence.". He was very happy that day. He was very happy that he tried to write the word "University Housing". And he did pages and pages of writing, "writing a book" he called it, every day after school that week.

I only get to see his work on Friday, when he brings back his work done in school for the entire week. Can you see Mrs M's remarks on the paper? She wrote "All by himself =) ".

Now I can understand why my boy is so happy to read a book by himself, and is so eager to "write a book' . Like he said, "I'm a author".

And I am one happy reader!

Spelling Test

It's been almost three weeks since school started. Darling son already had his first timed Math test. And this week, he had his first Spelling Test. The list was given to the class on Monday, and they would be tested on Friday.

I guess the spelling is good for darling son, since he is a visual learner. He has a good memory for things, and learning spelling helps him in writing.

When asked to rate how they performed for the test, darling son circled

... FANTASTIC!

Good work, son! And keep it up!

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I had two gala apples sitting on my dinning table. My boys had say "NO" when offered an apple after school. Their reason? The apples were a little over-ripe, and not crunchy. Not wanting to waste the apples, I decided to use them to make a batch of apple cinnamon muffins. Searched the web and found the recipe from Baking Bites.

I bought a packet of Whole Ground Flaxseed Meal a while ago. Not wanting to put too much oil/butter in my bakes, I decided to try using the flaxseed meal to replace the oil required. Flaxseed meal definitely has more nutritional values than oil/butter. The ratio required is 3 portions of flaxseed meal to 1 portion of oil/butter/shortening.

2 cups Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Salt

1.5 tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Ground Ginger (I omit this)

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

1 Large Egg

2 tbsp Butter, melted and cooled

2 tbsp Vegetable Oil (I replaced with 6 tbsp Flaxseed Meal)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 cup Buttermilk (I used fresh milk)

1.5 cups Diced Apples

Toppings : 3 tbsp Coarse Sugar + 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon

• Preheat oven to 375F.
• In a medium bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.
• In a large bowl, add brown sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Mix well.
• Whisk in melted butter.
• Alternately stir in flour mixture and buttermilk.
• Stir in diced apples.
• Divide batter into the prepared muffin cups. Fill to the top.
• Sprinkle the topping over the batter.
• Bake for 15-18 minutes, or till done.

Yummy!

Munch, Munch, Mooncakes!

When you think of Mid-Autumn Festival, you think of Mooncakes more than lanterns.

Since we were at the Asian Mart this afternoon, we couldn't resist, but to throw in a big box of mooncakes into our trolley before we checkout!

I brought a small lotus paste mooncake out to the playground for the boys and the man to share. The man and the little boy looked on jealously as the big boy stuffed a quarter of the mooncake into his mouth! They all loved eating mooncakes!

I think we will have to make another trip the Asian Mart soon ....